The Insubstantial Pageant : A Study of The Development of Shakespeares Life-vision

Prospero's vision of the 'insubstantial pageant of the world in The Tempest (Act IV. Sc. i) forms the core of a mystery which, with warm encouragement from Helen Gardner, sets the author off on a fresh enquiry regarding the development of Shakespeare's lifevision. Part I shows how the ethereal utterance betrays a curious · lack of connection with Prospero's character, with the dramatic action of the play and, ultimately, with the entire world of Shakespearian dramatic thought. The quest leads back in Part II to the analysis of a conflict of visions in the plays of the Great Tragic Period. It involves a close study of the nine plays and concludes that at the end of the phase Shakespeare's vision of evil-ridden reality came to confront an impasse, rendering further progress in that direction impossible. The recoil from the dark tragic impasse, of which the romantic tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra affords a foretaste, leads Shakespeare on to the final romances and ultimately to the vision of the 'insubstantial pageant'.